A recently demoted executive entered a Loop office building Thursday morning and shot the company’s CEO before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide, authorities said.
The shooting happened just before 10 a.m. at the ArrowStream company on the 17th floor of the Bank of America building at 231 S. LaSalle St.
“Apparently he was despondent over the fact that he got demoted,” Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said.
The company’s CEO, Steven LaVoie, 54, was in critical condition at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after being shot in the head and stomach, authorities said.
The alleged shooter was identified as Anthony DeFrances, a 59-year-old employee who had been told on Friday that was being demoted as the company downsizes, police said.
When the shooter, a longtime employee, produced the gun, the two men struggled over it before the CEO was shot.
McCarthy said 10 witnesses are being interviewed by police.
“I can’t see how this could have been a security issue,” McCarthy said. “This is basically a personal thing and unfortunately it’s turning out this way.”
The firm sells supply-chain management technology.
That block of LaSalle Street was closed to traffic as police officers flooded the scene.
Jay McKeon, who works at the Federal Reserve Bank in the Loop, says he saw a man being wheeled out of the building on a stretcher.
Ambaj Sharma, who works in the Chicago Board of Trade building, said his brother works on the 14th floor of 231 South LaSalle and wasn’t being allowed to leave the building.
-- Sun-Times staff